FACTS

• Domestic/dating violence is a pattern of controlling behaviors that one partner uses to get power over the other. Including: physical violence or threat of physical violence to get control, emotional or mental abuse and sexual abuse.

• 85% of domestic violence victims are women.

• 1/4 of women worldwide will experience domestic/dating violence in their lifetime.

• Women between the ages of 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic violence.

• Domestic violence is most likely to take place between 6 pm and 6 am.

• The costs of domestic violence amount to more than $37 billion a year in law enforcement involvement, legal work, medical and mental health treatment, and lost productivity at companies.

• As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.

• Boys who witness domestic violence are 2 times as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.

• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women – more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.

• 1/2 of all homeless women and children in the U.S. are fleeing from domestic violence.

• Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten.

• In 60% to 80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.